Dirk

Comment Threads

• Nojay commented on Dread of Heinleinism
  I know that cartographers would sometimes introduce odd errors like non-existent streets to "watermark" their maps -- the London A to Z has a couple of such deliberate errata, now well-known. The GI Joe toy had/has a deliberately defective thumbnail on one hand for the same reason of copyright. However introducing deliberate errors into tables of logarithms and trig functions is, well, introducing errors which is a Bad Thing. Any errors that exist in older books of log tables were probably accidental. Most volumes of log tables were produced long before copyright was a legal and enforceable concept. The copier...
• Troutwaxer commented on Dread of Heinleinism
  Maybe humans need a "Museum" like the Moties. I'd build one if I had the money....
• JohnS commented on Dread of Heinleinism
  Only needs two more comments for this thread to become ironic ... well one more now....
• Troutwaxer commented on Dread of Heinleinism
  You're quite correct. I'll be happy for my post to reflect "The Number of the Beast." We should all stop now....
• MSB commented on Dread of Heinleinism
  We should all stop now. "Stop" in the sense of "cease to exist" or—more to the point—"go to hell"? ;-) No, I don't think we should do that now. Thus I'm taking a step above and beyond an arbitrary number that only had a particular meaning in a specific context roughly 1930 years ago—and nobody today is even certain what that particular meaning was, although there are some reasonable hypotheses. I should note, however, that the context—a scathing critique of imperialism—is indeed no less relevant today than it was back then. It is even related to the discussion in this...